


Begin The Hours of This Day Slow

by ZoeBug



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Era, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Insecurity, JeanMarco Gift Exchange 2015, M/M, aaand lots of Robert Frost quotes, kinda season-by-season snapshots of their relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 04:39:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5483774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoeBug/pseuds/ZoeBug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Mmm,” Marco agrees, following his gaze upwards. “Everything you look at reminds you things are changing.”<br/><br/><em>“The crows above the forest call;</em><br/><em>Tomorrow they may form and go.</em><br/><em>O hushed October morning mild,</em><br/><em>Begin the hours of this day slow.”</em><br/>     <span class="u">October</span> by: Robert Frost</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1: Spring

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Songbird321](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Songbird321/gifts).



> My JeanMarco Secret Santa gift for [pretty-eyes-jaeger](http://pretty-eyes-jaeger.tumblr.com/) on tumblr/[Songbird321](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Songbird321) on AO3. I hope you enjoy this! I don't usually write a lot of fluff so I hope this atmospheric, slow coming-to-realization I ended up with hits the spot for you! It was a lot of fun writing this I really hope you enjoy it. Happy Holidays!
> 
> Special thanks to everyone who ran the JM Gift Exchange this year, you guys are phenomenal!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“And feel a spirit kindred to my own;_  
>  _So that henceforth I worked no more alone;_  
>  _But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,_  
>  _And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;”_  
>       The Tuft of Flowers by: Robert Frost

Jean usually doesn’t draw people.

It’s not that he won’t and it’s not that he can’t, it’s just that he usually doesn’t.

And with his sketchbook currently balanced on his knee, holding the edge of the page down against the warm April breeze’s attempts to lick at the corners, he’s not sure why he decided this was to be one of his exceptions.

Why _Marco_ was to be one of his exceptions.

He guesses perhaps it’s the way Marco had fallen asleep propped up against the trunk of a tilted willow. Its curved branches reach outwards over the lazily flowing brook beside them and the low-hanging strands of leaves barely scrape along the water’s surface in a way that, from where Jean is currently sitting opposite his current subject, makes the tree seem to frame Marco’s sleeping form.

Jean furrows his brow, tongue poking at the corners of his lips in concentration as he attempts to capture the way the ripples of the willow’s leaves stream behind them. He’s no stranger to drawing rivers or trees. There’s no shortage of them around and whenever Jean is in the mood to sketch, he need only hike a few minutes into the forest in any direction before reaching one.

Or perhaps, he considers, it’s the way the purple of aster flowers are splayed around Marco at the base of the tree, dotted among the grass so vibrantly green with last week’s rainfall Jean is regretting leaving his coloring chalk in his bunk. Perhaps he’ll have to add colors to it back at the barracks tonight. Or come back to this spot in order to find the exact right shade of of the asters’ petals hit by sunlight and the way the tree’s bark fades slowly to lighter brown the further up one looks.

But Jean frowns, glancing down at his drawing, then back up to watch the slow rise and fall of Marco’s chest as he sleeps. Because the colors of Marco’s hair dappled in sunlight that filters down through the leaves - the way it sets certain colors alight amidst the richer shades―would be so impossible to do by memory. As would the way the recent emerging of spring sunlight has brought the freckles back out in the boy’s cheeks where they had faded in the winter gloom. As would the subtle fall of shadows beneath the curves of his cheekbones and off the side of his nose. And beneath his bottom lip where it is parted ever so slightly as he sleeps.

And it’s then that Jean remembers why he doesn’t usually draw people.

His breath feels tight in his chest as he presses his charcoal to darkens the line of Marco’s jaw where it is thrust into sharper relief by the angle of his head tilted against the tree trunk.

Drawing rivers and trees and flowers is easier for Jean. Because, while beautiful and intricate and sometimes very hard to get right in likeness on paper, they are rivers and trees and flowers. They aren’t things that look back at him or smile at him or tell him he’s a good person when he feels like the mud beneath his boots and he should switch places.

Drawing people is intimate. And it scares Jean.

To draw someone, Jean must trace along their every line with his charcoals, smudge along every shadow in the hollows of their form with his fingertips. The devil is in the details when it comes to drawing people. The pieces you notice, the pieces you _know_ are there, know _why_ they’re there, what you emphasize and what you don’t. To draw someone means to take them into yourself in order to pour them back outwards into a portrait and that amount of undertaking is slightly terrifying in Jean.

By the time he is attempting to lightly sketch the eyelashes arcing softly up from Marco’s eyelids, his hands are nearly shaking.

Because he knows what it means to draw someone well. It’s why his room use to be littered in balled up failed attempts at sketching Mikasa. It’s why none of them looked like her. There was always something off in the eyes, or the curve of her face, or the way her hair fell against her cheeks. His drawings of Mikasa had never looked like her because Jean was never really drawing _her_.

But in Marco he sees the the light shadows beneath his eyes, knows they are darker from taking over Sasha’s dish duty the night before without being asked after she’d caught an awful cold. He sees the scabbing cuts on his knuckles from always offering to help people in and out of the gear harnesses with their multitude of sharp-cornered buckles.

Which is why smudging the charcoal to create a shadow on the underside of Marco’s upper lip feels terrifyingly close to a caress against his trembling fingers.

Because in Marco he sees the slight, contented smile at the corners of his lips, even asleep. He sees the way his sleeves slide up on his forearms when his arms aren’t at his sides because he’s been growing so quickly and his shirts are rapidly becoming too small for him. And he sees the sun-kissed warm darkness to his skin that always persists, even now coming out of winter.

Because he sees the patch of the Training Corp on his jacket’s breast, above Marco’s heart that he pledges so earnestly to the King. Such a fragile thing in this upside-down world of theirs, something so easily stopped in a hundred, thousand ways.

Because Jean sees the beginnings of laughter lines forming at the corners of Marco’s eyes, despite being so young, so _young,_ all of them are so, _so_ young-

“Jean?” Jerking his head up, Jean sees Marco sit up straighter against the tree as he sleepily blinks himself awake. “How long have I been asleep?”

Jean looks down to his drawing, then back up to Marco as he flips the cover around to rest back on top and dusts his hands free of whatever charcoal will come loose.

“Not long, don’t worry.” Jean smirks over at him. “If we had to be back I would’ve woken you up.” Marco’s brow furrows in slight confusion as he looks to Jean, down to the sketchbook on his lap, to his charcoal stained fingers, then back to his face.

“Were you drawing me?” he asks. Marco’s voice is still a bit distant with sleep, but the warmth in Marco’s smile as he asks makes him swallow against something he suddenly feels in his throat and has to clear it before speaking.

“You wish,” Jean scoffs, tossing up his cockiest smirk before climbing to his feet.

“I don’t mind,” Marco replies, disregarding Jean’s bravado as if waving away cobwebs in his path. “I always like your drawings.” Jean’s fingers clench around the edge of the sketchpad against his side.

“Maybe if you’re real nice to me, I’ll draw you sometime.” Jean ducks just in time to evade the twig that goes whizzing past his head.

“Oi! What the hell?!” Jean exclaims as another twig glances off his thigh, accompanied by Marco’s raucous laughter. “Okay, kiss _any_ possibility of a portrait goodbye, you freckly bastard!”

Marco just reaches for another nearby twig and grins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [fanfic/podfic blog](http://zoe-bug.tumblr.com/) | [personal](http://xiexiecaptain.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/xiexiecaptain)


	2. Part 2: Summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“As you came up the hill. We met. But all_  
>  _We did that day was mingle great and small_  
>  _Footprints in summer dust as if we drew_  
>  _The figure of our being less than two”_  
>       Meeting and Passing by: Robert Frost

It’s August and the packed earth of the training yard is dry from the summer heat and the months without rain. It spits up dust beneath Marco’s boots when he darts sideways, dodging Jean’s fist as it flies past his cheek. Sweat drips from his temples and he wipes the back of his hand across his forehead, unable to keep back the smile creeping across his face at the dejected scowl gracing Jean’s.

“It was better this time,” Marco assures, stepping forward to clap a hand companionably on Jean’s shoulder. They’d long since abandoned their jackets to a heap by the edge of the grass. Even with their sleeves rolled up and shirts unbuttoned over their undershirts, they’re both damp with sweat and flushed with the late August heat.

“Says the guy who I haven’t been able to land a hit on even once.” Jean scowls, slightly shrugging Marco’s hand from his shoulder. “Just wait til Jaeger hears about this one.”

Marco shakes his head, exasperated, albeit amused.

“Cheer up, sourpuss. You nearly had me a bunch of times.” Marco’s attempts to lift Jean’s spirits fall flat however as Jean’s scowl deepens and he turns away, shoulders hunched in the dejected, prickly defense he always erects when his self-doubts come creeping over him.

“‘m just shit at all this sparring crap,” he mutters. “Like I can see where I need to be, I just can’t get there quick enough.” Jean huffs in exasperation, whirling to face Marco again with eyebrows pulled together into a defiant knot. “If we were in gear, I could beat your ass so fast!”

Marco stares for a moment, taking in Jean’s petulant insistence, his hands balled into fists at his side, his bottom lip pushed out just a tad. And despite the hand he claps over his mouth he can’t help the bubbling laughter that spills forth between his fingers at the picture of his best friend looking so incredibly much like a frustrated toddler before him, sweat-slick hair standing up wildly on end.

“What?!” Jean demands, stalking toward Marco, glaring. Marco backs up, trying to control his laughter and attempts to explain between uneven gasps of air.

“Jean- You- J-Jean, no, I’m-” Despite his efforts, Marco’s laughter keeps tumbling over his words before he can get more than a few out in a row.

“You think you could beat me in gear, Bodt?” Jean demands and Marco can see the playful glint in his eyes as he continues toward him, a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. “You wanna go?”

“I’m so- s-sorry, I just-” One hand still over his beaming, traitorous mouth, Marco’s hand stretches out as if to ward off Jean’s advancing form.

But just as Jean, grinning with playful revenge, is about to reach him, the back of Marco’s boot hits the curved top half of a rock embedded into the dirt. Dizzy with laughter and August heat, Marco losses his balance just as Jean’s hands lunge forward to grab him. Jean, for his part, with his center of balance shifted to attack Marco, only to have him disappear from the air before him, falls forward as well. And  together they are suddenly tumbling in a mess of flailing arms and surprised shouts in a cloud of dust to the packed earth.

The heavy summer air hangs around them as if the laziness of the heat has affected even the slow forward crawl of time as Marco, wind knocked from his lungs by the awkward landing, freezes. Jean stares down at him from where he’d landed on top of him, arms outstretched on either side of his head to brace himself, their legs tangled together. From up this close, Marco can see the flecks of green dotting the rich hazel of Jean’s eyes as they flit subtly back and forth between his own, then once down to Marco’s parted lips.

Marco watches a bead of sweat slide down Jean’s temple from beneath his bangs and thinks he really should have gotten his breath back by now.

And then Jean shifts, heaving himself backwards to his knees near Marco’s feet with an embarrassed smile and a flush Marco doesn’t know if he remembers being so dark before. The laugh Jean lets out is natural, unstrained, and Marco is thankful.

“Sorry about that, man,” Jean says through his light laughter, brushing the dusty dirt from his knees as Marco sits up. “But I gotta hand it to you. Quite an elaborate way of getting out of admitting you got a snowball’s chance in hell of beating me in the air.”

Marco snorts and pulls a face, moving to get back up to his feet when Jean leans forward and lightly punches him in the shoulder. Jerking his head up, Marco looks incredulously over at Jean who is climbing to his feet with the biggest shit-eating smirk in his arsenal.

“What was that for?” Marco laughs. Jean extends his hand to help pull Marco up, still grinning. His shoulders shake with laughter as Marco, now upright, lets go of his hand and twists around to see the back of his pants and shirt coated in the dark earth, clinging to his sweat-dampened shirt. He sighs. “Honestly, Jean.”

He turns to glare at Jean only to see him still smiling, wide as ever.

“Finally landed one on you,” he states proudly, hands on his hips, blonde hair glinting brightly in the late summer sun beating down on them.

Marco shakes his head, smiling despite the incredulous part of his lips.

“I swear,” Marco mutters, peeling his dirt-smattered outer shirt from his shoulders and shaking it in vain. “I don’t know why I’m friends with you sometimes.”

“Yeah, you do,” Jean scoffs, stooped down to grab their jackets from their heap where the grass meets the dirt. He turns, tosses Marco’s jacket at him before slinging his own over his shoulders, white uniform pants blotched with dirt, face shining with exertion in the bright sun and smiles. “It’s cause I’m the best.”

It’s that same cocky grin from before. Wide and different from the one he flashes at Connie in the mess hall or tosses at Thomas during lectures or throws up to aggravate Eren. It’s warmer, Marco thinks, somehow softer. Like the pink blooming beneath Jean’s cheekbones in the heat. Like the whispered, “ _Hey, Marco? Do you really think I can make the top ten?_ ” in the dark silence of the barracks after everyone else is asleep. Like the way his nimble fingers help untangle Marco’s harness when it tangles behind his back.

Marco smiles, clapping Jean on the back as he starts forward, boots crunching on the dry earth.

“Whatever you say.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [fanfic/podfic blog](http://zoe-bug.tumblr.com/) | [personal](http://xiexiecaptain.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/xiexiecaptain)


	3. Part 3: Autumn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Yet nothing I should care to leave behind._  
>  _With all I have to hold with hand and mind_  
>  _And heart, if need be, I will do my best_  
>  _To keep their building balanced at my breast.”_  
>       The Armful by: Robert Frost

It had been warm for October down on the ground with the rest of the 104th as they'd trekking out to the forest training course earlier that day. The chorus of boots as they'd crunched across fallen leaves in their wake had made a noisy marching band to their procession among the trees. But now, zigzagging rapidly between trunks and branches, Jean’s cheeks have been stung into a flush by the chill of the passing wind.

He smiles anyway, regardless of how much the air makes his teeth ache when he does so.

In sparring practice, down on the ground, saying Jean has room to improve is an understatement. He is anything but extraordinary. At sparring, at morals, at talking, at eye contact. Down on the ground Jean is anything but sure in his steps. But up here, with the wind against his face, with the rhythm of shifting weight and wires retracting and firing that his body adapts to and assimilates so effortlessly, with the freedom and ease and speed, Jean is phenomenal.

And he can feel it. In the quiet peace of autumn he can hear nothing but the distant zipping of wires from the other cadets and the creaking of trees and the soft yet ever-present sound of settling. He takes a deep breath of crisp autumn air, breathes the smell of freshly fallen leaves and flexes his chilled fingers around the grips of his triggers.

He doesn’t even care that, technically, he’s _supposed_ to be looking for the giant wooden cut out of a titan’s form to practice aerial strikes. His marks for the 3DMG are already the best in the 104th and he doesn't need the practice. His stomach lurches in the most delicious way as he swings upwards before releasing his wire from a nearby tree allowing him to fall in a wide, downward arc. He nearly skims the blanket of fallen leaves on the forest floor before his other wire pulls him into the upward swing.

Besides, he thinks as his vision sharpens in the sudden rush of adrenaline, on a day like this it’d be a shame _not_ to take a little detour.

“-an!” Nearly swallowed by the wind whooshing past his ears, he catches a snippet of a voice coming from behind him. Whipping his head around after making sure there are no solid objects directly in his flight path, he spots Marco’s blurred shape swinging over from the trees to his left.

“Why aren’t you with the rest of the group?” Jean shouts over to Marco, laughing as the other boy swings nearer.

“Could ask you the same thing!” Marco replies, grinning. Passing through a gap in the trees’ canopy and into empty air streaked with columns of sunlight, his smile is illuminated; so suddenly bright he seems, for a moment, to nearly glow.

But before Jean can respond Marco lurches sideways in a sudden, sickening jerk, his body careening downwards. Jean catches the image of his face, frozen in an open-mouthed picture of shock, before he’s plummeting toward the ground.

“Marco!” Jean shouts, immediately firing his wire to sling-shot him around a tree and back around to where Marco had gone down. He swings into a less-than-graceful landing a few feet from where Marco is sprawled across the autumn leaves, shakily attempting to push himself into a sitting position.

Jean trips the last few feet toward his friend, already babbling with worry.

“Holy shit! Marco, dude, are you okay? Anything broken? You-”

Marco cracks a pained smile at him as he hurriedly rushes forward.

“Jean! Calm down, yeah? I’m fine, just-” Marco breaks off with a wince and a soft hiss through gritted teeth.

“Oh yeah? Doesn’t seem like it to me,” Jean retorts, kneeling down beside his friend. Marco’s face is flushed from the wind and the chill as well and the splotches of pink atop his cheekbones nearly swallow his freckles. “What hurts?”

“Mmm, my ankle,” Marco admits, hand reaching tentatively to prod at the area before wincing again. “I don’t think it’s broken or anything. Probably just twisted it when I landed. It’s really fine, Jean. You didn’t have to come down.”

Jean snorts, reaching under Marco’s knee to help guide his leg into a more natural position. The warmth seeping up from beneath the fabric there almost burns against his chilled fingers.

“What kinda friend would just keep going?” Jean mutters. He glances up at Marco, jerking his head toward Marco’s leg. “Mind if I check?” Marco laughs lightly and graces Jean with another one of his exasperated-yet-amused smiles.

“Okay, _Dr_. Kirschtein.” Jean rolls his eyes at Marco but doesn’t respond, only reaches down to begin gingerly sliding Marco’s boot down his leg. Marco winces and hisses every few inches but Jean is careful to slow and stop and readjust until he finally pulls it free of Marco’s foot and sets it aside.

Jean slides the fabric of Marco’s pant leg up with the gentlest of touches, as if brushing his fingers along the most delicate of silk rather than Marco’s flesh. The sigh that escapes Marco’s lips when his chilly fingers meet the skin clearly beginning to swell around his ankle makes Jean jump. It also makes the skin around his collar feel suddenly very warm compared to his chilly extremities.

“S-Sorry,” Marco whispers. “Your hands are cold and it feels nice.”

“Glad I could be a satisfactory ice pack,” Jean replies sarcastically, but still prods gently around Marco’s tender ankle. “Yeah, you were right it’s just twisted. We should get you back to the barracks, though.”

“A-about that…” Marco starts. Jean looks up at him and realizes that, kneeling beside his feet, he’s looking up the length of Marco’s body as he reclines back on his hands. The openness of it, the vulnerability of his injury and the way he glances back at Jean under his eyelashes with a sheepish smile, nearly knocks Jean sideways. “I think one of my firing mechanisms got bent out of shape when I fell.”

Marco jerks his chin at the crumpled piece of metal near his hip. It’s true. The opening for the wire has been folded in on itself from impact, not to mention twisted outwards from the belt securing it to Marco’s side. Completely useless at the moment and not something fixable in the field.

“Shit.”

“Yeah. B-but, it’s fine. I can make it back on my own. You should go finish the-” Jean turns a deadpan glare over at Marco and watches his words die in his mouth under his gaze.

“Can we skip the whole ‘go on without me bit’ and get on with the ‘me helping you get back’ part?” Jean asks dryly, already scooting up to Marco’s shoulders to prepare for helping him to his feet.

"But Jean, you barely get to practice with gear as it is. And you _love_ fl-”

“Marco,” Jean silences him, one of his arms already under Marco’s, their faces side by side and then, as Jean turns to quiet his protests again, only inches apart. Jean’s next words are quiet. Softer. And he can’t help the earnest tone that creeps into his voice or the way his eyes flick down to Marco’s lips for a split second before he speaks. “You’re more important than flying. Let me help you.”

And Marco, his eyes widening in that way that always makes him look so adoring and boyish and bright, his tongue darting to wet his bottom lip as he returns Jean’s gaze with such rapt attention, only nods.

Jean closes his eyes for a moment and lets out a slow breath, turning back away from Marco.

“All right, on three, yeah? One, two-” On three Jean heaves Marco upwards, Marco pushing off on his good foot.

After a scarily steep wobble to the right, Marco is back on his feet, his arm around Jean’s shoulders and Jean’s arm around his waist. _God_ , Marco’s side is so _warm_ where his fingers curl around the curve of his ribcage, Jean notes. Warm and solid and gently expanding and contracting with his breathing and-

“We ready?” Marco asks, smiling down from the few inches he’s gained on Jean in the past months.

“Just waitin’ for you, limpy.”

They’re silent for the first few minutes as they make their way among swirls of leaves that drift down silently around them. Jean’s other hand has made it’s way up to clasp Marco’s own for better balance where it had been curled against his shoulder.

Marco’s hands had rapidly warmed Jean’s own and with the peaceful quiet of the autumn forest lulling him to distraction, Jean finds himself minutes later unconsciously stroking his thumb along the backs of Marco’s knuckles.

“It’s always so beautiful. The forest in autumn.” Marco’s voice is soft and almost reverent and gives no acknowledgement of the way Jean’s hand stiffens and freezes atop his when he realizes what he had been doing.

Jean peers at him from out of the corner of his eye, hoping his blooming blush can still be passed off as the chill. But Marco is just smiling contentedly over at him, then gazing up and around at the softly falling leaves again. Slowly, so _slowly_ , unable to help the tremor that rakes through his hand, he begins again to slide his thumb once again along Marco’s knuckles.

“Yeah,” Jean manages gruffly. Marco sighs and Jean sees he’s closed his eyes beside him.

“I wish it would just stay like this forever.”

The creeping feeling of a lump forming in Jean’s throat whispers that Marco isn’t just talking about the trees around them but he doesn’t― _can't―_ say anything in response to the layers of Marco's words. So instead, he just keeps walking with the heat of Marco’s torso seeping in through his shirt where it’s pressed against his own side.

“‘s kinda contrary, don’t y’think?” Jean mutters instead after a moment, eyes drifting upwards to the shedding trees.

“What’s kinda contrary?”

“That you wish it would stay autumn forever.”

Jean doesn’t even need to look over to know Marco’s grinning that patient, indulging grin he gives whenever Jean is being anything but helpful in their conversations.

“How so?”

“It’s autumn,” Jean states, as if that in itself should be enough of an explanation. He looks around at the browning foliage and the leaves swirling silently toward the ground and the few already bare branches of some of the trees that reach outwards above their heads like skeletal hands.

“Mmm,” Marco agrees, following his gaze upwards. “Everything you look at reminds you things are changing.”

Jean’s breath catches at the slightest squeeze of Marco’s fingers around his own, beneath the gentle slides of his thumb.

“Yeah,” Jean agrees, glancing over at Marco, unable to help one side of his mouth pulling up into a small, crooked smile. “Hopefully for the best, though.”

Marco smiles back at him, his eyes so wide and so warm and so _beautiful_ in the dappled autumn sunlight, moving to flick back and forth between Jean’s own as if committing the image to memory.

“Hopefully for the best,” he agrees and squeezes Jean’s hand once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [fanfic/podfic blog](http://zoe-bug.tumblr.com/) | [personal](http://xiexiecaptain.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/xiexiecaptain)


	4. Part 4: Winter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“We stood a moment so in a strange world,_  
>  _Myself as one his own pretense deceives;_  
>  _And then I said the truth (and we moved on)._  
>  _A young beech clinging to its last year's leaves.”_  
>       A Boundless Moment by: Robert Frost

The snow that gives way beneath Marco’s boots is the kind that squeaks softly beneath weight. The soft and light kind that looks almost blinding in the noon-day sun. It’s the kind that’s good for making snowmen or snowballs or for sledding. The air is crisp. The kind of cold clearness that nearly burns on the way in and the kind that crystallizes his breath into mist when he exhales.

Snowflakes drift down so slowly it seems as if they almost hover in the air around him like fireflies would if it were summertime again in the woods. He reaches out one gloved finger to catch a wispy puff of snow on his outstretched finger. Next summer, he thinks, he should teach Jean how to make a firefly lantern by trapping them in a jar for the night.

There’s something, Marco thinks as he stares at the snowflake on his glove slowly beginning to dissolve, about capturing drifting dots of light for yourself for a moment. Whether it be falling snowflakes or darting fireflies or the nervous, genuine smile of a boy who thinks too little of himself after taking off all the armor of arrogance.

“Yo! Marco!” Marco whirls, boots squeaking against the snow to find a scowling Jean trudging toward him. “‘s fuckin’ freezing. What’re you doing out here?”

Jean is blowing into his hands, eyebrows twitching in annoyance as he shuffles through the snow. The chill is slowly pulling a rosy flush to the surface of his cheeks.

“Just taking a walk,” Marco admits sheepishly.

“Why?” Jean demands, eyes darting about to the snowy evening forest, as if incapable of comprehending the idea that someone would want to subject themselves to it willingly.

“It’s peaceful,” Marco shrugs.

“It’s also cold as hell.” Jean is almost pouting. Marco cracks a smile.

“I always forget you’re from the city, Jean. The winters are milder there so you’re probably not used to this cold.”

“You can get used to this?” Jean's features twist into a comically incredulous expression.

Marco can’t help but laugh softly at his friend, so petulant as he stomps his feet in attempt to keep his toes warm.

“Well, for one thing, it would help if you dressed properly.” Jean raises one eyebrow and Marco gestures at Jean still in his regular uniform, albeit with the thicker leather jacket rather than the cotton versions they have for the summers. “No coat, no gloves? No wonder you’re freezing.”

“So I’m an idiot, no need to rub it in.” Jean voice is softer, now, devoid of all teasing. Yet it still retains all of the cuttingly truthful self-loathing that Marco can see consume Jean in quiet moments of dejection or frustration.

“Jean,” Marco says softly, snow crunching softly as he walks to where Jean is standing. “You’re fine. Like I said, this is your first winter out in the country. You didn’t know.” He pauses for a moment. “There is one thing you could do. If your hands are cold, that is.”

“What’s that?”

Marco tries not to show how fast his breathing has suddenly become from nerves but it’s difficult when each breath is illuminated and outlined in the air as mist.

“Put ‘em in my pockets.”

To Marco’s surprise Jean almost lunges forward, fumblingly shoving his numb fingers deep into the forest green depths of Marco's wool coat pockets. Jean’s breath puffs out in a sharp, relieved exhale  so close to Marco now, Jean’s face is obscured for a moment by the mist.

Jean opens his eyes, almost seeming surprised by himself.

“S-sorry. I was cold," he mutters.

“You’re shivering,” Marco almost whispers the words because up this close, he can now see the way Jean’s form is trembling slightly, the way the muscles of his jaw flex to keep his teeth from chattering. “Why’d you come out here anyway?”

Jean is silent for a moment, his eyes sliding past Marco into the darkened forest beyond them.

“Couldn’t sleep. I came out to find you.” Marco frowns in concern.

“Everything okay? Do you wanna talk about it?”

Jean closes his eyes, his lips curving up the slightest bit into a the shadow of a rueful smile, and shakes his head.

“Nah. It’s fine now." He pauses to glance around. "I’m kinda realizing why you would wanna take a walk out here in the freezing cold now.”

Marco hums in agreement, studying the few drifting snowflakes that have landed on the crown of Jean’s head.

“Like I said." He smiles, looking back to meet Jean’s eyes. “Peaceful.”

This time Jean doesn’t shift his gaze away to the snow-laden trees behind him or close his eyes. He stares up into Marco’s eyes, face flushed with the chill and eyes bright. The moment seems to hang as moments sometimes do between the two of them, moments where breath comes so shallowly and loudly and the world outside the space between their faces blurs away.

A snowflake, delicate and silent and fragile, drifts to to land precariously on the eyelashes above Jean's left eye. Marco realizes his lips are already parted when he goes to take in a breath―too loud for the silence between them and far too choppy.

“A snowflake," Marco starts. His voice is more breath than voice and Jean’s eyebrows twist slightly in confusion, still only taking his gaze from Marco’s eyes when his tongue darts out to wet his lips in nervousness. “On your eyelash.”

Front to front, with Jean’s hands in his pockets, Marco raises one gloved hand, it coming to hover beside Jean’s face. He feels Jean tense, but in flicking his gaze to Jean’s face he sees no apprehension in his expression. His eyes are very wide, reflecting the scant light so beautifully and his lips are parted―pink like the flush on his cheeks and Marco can’t seem to swallow properly.

Slowly, trying to keep his hand from shaking as he does so, he reaches his hand with index finger outstretched to Jean’s face. His eyes are darting from Marco’s face to the leather of Marco’s glove as it slides gently along the line of his eyelashes, the snowflake coming to rest on his fingertip.

Marco draws his hand away, keeping it raised in the space between them. The snowflake lies gently on his outstretched finger. So delicate and unlikely. Unimaginably unique. Utterly irreplaceable.

“Make a wish,” Marco whispers. He expects Jean to make some retort about that being for eyelashes and not snowflakes that land on them but instead he just lowers his eyes to Marco’s finger, his face still set in that beautifully open and vulnerable expression. It’s one so different from the arrogant scowl or cocky grin he usually wears and Marco can’t help but think softness suits Jean’s face in still moments like these―can’t help but think how achingly delicate and unlikely and utterly irreplaceable he is in this moment.

Jean blows gently, breath escaping in a puff of mist, and the snowflake is gone again, swirling off into the winter air. Slowly, as if moving through water, Jean’s eyes return to Marco’s face, Marco’s hands to the top of Jean’s arms.

He smiles, teasingly but still so open and bright.

“Aren’t you gonna ask what I wished for?” He asks, voice as soft as the snowflakes floating around them.

“Thought if you tell me, it won't come true,” Marco says in a puff of mist. Jean takes a moment to inhale deeply.

“Thing is, I think this is the kind of wish that won’t come true _unless_ I tell you.” His voice is vapor and poorly masked vulnerability and Marco can't help but smile down at him.

“All right, then,” he breathes. “What’d you wish for?”

Jean’s tongue darts out to wet his lips and Marco can feel the movement of Jean’s body―so, so close to him―as his breath hitches in his chest.

His lips part and to Marco it happens in slow motion, like the sun rising over the horizon, like a snowflake making its way to the ground.

“I wished that you would kiss me.”

 

 

 

The forest is quiet that evening. There's nothing but the softly falling snowflakes drifting to the ground and the two boys who brush chilly noses against each others' cheeks as they press their lips softly, hesitantly, gently together. The snow squeaks beneath their boots upon subtle shifts of weight and neither of them are shiver from the cold now.

The moment drifts. Like snowflakes falling. Like their exhales swirling in clouds of combining mist above their heads.

Peaceful and delicate and so utterly irreplaceable.

**Author's Note:**

> [fanfic/podfic blog](http://zoe-bug.tumblr.com/) | [personal](http://xiexiecaptain.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/xiexiecaptain)


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